1st Congressional District Republican Caucus Notes | February 21-22, 2025

1^st Congressional District Republican Caucus Notes | February 21-22, 2025

The 1^st District Caucus was held Friday evening to elect the Republican leadership of the 1^st Congressional Republican District for the 2025-2026 election cycle. This is the team elected by our delegates to work with our county parties to beat the Democrats and WIN in 2026:

• Chair: Daire Rendon
• Vice Chair: Bonnie Hakkola
• Treasurer: Jeffrey Nerem Secretary: Christian Holz
• State Committee Member: Christian Marcus
• State Committee Member: Todd Smalenberg
• State Committee Member: Angela Hall
• State Committee Member: Dan Bonamie
• State Committee Member: Monika Fiebing
• State Committee Member: Jennifer Standerfer

Your new 1^st District Executive Committee members are: Dan Adamini, Bob Baldwin, Asuka Barden, Jessica Dobbs, Donna Dutcher, Neil Friske, Jim Hale, Bruce Rendon, Kathy Salisbury, Bryan Skrzycki, Jeffrey Strasser, John Studer, Pamela Trask, Tom VanWormer, and Joe Welsh.

At our Friday evening caucus meeting, Laura Tarsa, the Credentials Chair, reported that we started the meeting with 168 delegates. 16 of those delegates were “at large” delegates. An “at large" delegate would be a District Chair, a state committee member, and all elected Michigan legislators who live in the 1^st Congressional District. We were thrilled to have all 9 of our elected District 1 legislators join us to participate in the caucus election on Friday night. Unfortunately, Congressman Bergman was unable to be there, though he also is an “at large” delegate for the 1^st Congressional District.

In 2025, the 1^st Congressional District had their delegate apportionment numbers cut by 36 delegates. So, the total number of delegates that could have participated in the convention, after the cut, is 201. It is almost impossible to fill all of our possible delegate slots. There are a number of reasons why this happens, e.g. illness or a family emergency, but we must acknowledge that the distance from the corners of the Upper Peninsula to downtown Detroit is substantial. And, the cost to make the trip is even more of a reason to be considered by any delegate who is willing to give up the time (as long as 8 hours or more) to make the trip there and back. Protecting our liberty requires sacrifice.

We are grateful for those delegates who stepped up and made the trip, because showing up for the vote is important. Your 1^st Congressional District Executive Committee worked for weeks to make accommodations for safe travel and for lodging that was affordable and convenient to parking a bus.

We are beholden to our team members who volunteered to help with the many details that go along with planning a weekend event. Thank you to Dr Angela Hall, who arranged for a bus to transport the delegates and set up all the pick up spots and times. We owe a special thank you to the sponsors who each donated $500 to this effort: Terry Lynn Land, Sarah Hubbard, Senator Ed McBroom, Joe Cella, Jim Runestad, Dickinson County GOP, and the Marquette County GOP. Rich and Rita Rossway, the Delta County GOP, and Marquette County GOP donated food and beverages for the trip.

At the Garden Inn Hilton, where most of the delegates stayed, the Saturday morning breakfast was sponsored by Bruce and Daire Rendon. (Lodging, though very discounted, was the responsibility of the individual delegates.)

At the caucus meeting, we were proud to have both a United States flag and a Michigan flag behind the podium. Thank you to Jeffrey Nerem, who was able to procure the flags from Rexair, a manufacturing company in Wexford County. Not every District had flags.

We also thank Randy Bishop for his invocation and Ralph Rebandt, who performed as our parliamentarian. A special thank you goes to John Studer, Jeff Strasser, and Joe Welch, for their Sargent at Arms service to the caucus. And, lastly, a big thank-you to Laura Tarsa, our Credentials Chair, who busily kept up with all of the credentialing and elevation of delegates at the caucus on Friday night and at the convention on Saturday.

Our team of experienced election workers was led by Kristine DeTroyer. Joining her were Patty Mowery and Sharon Wade. Working together with Laura Tarsa, they made sure our line of voters moved at a good pace, so that the 1^st District votes would be among the first votes tabulated.

This year, all of the ballots were fed into a single tabulator when the voting process was complete, and this process was done by District. Once the ballots were tabulated, they were physically returned to each District voting station for a hand count. To accommodate this hand count of the ballots, MIGOP asked each District for 6 volunteers. Thank you to Kristin Nowatzke, Michelle Stabnau, Alison Studer, Donna Dutcher, Kevin Osborne, and Monika Fiebing. Their hand counts substantiated the counting done by the tabulator, giving the voters confidence that the votes were correctly counted. Thank you to this team for staying until the end to make sure we had accurate results.

There were other roles that required volunteers throughout the caucus and convention. Our folks in the 1^st District were there to help, so we covered all the bases. Thank you to anyone who extended a hand that I may have failed to name.

This convention is now history, and we won’t have another Michigan Republican convention in 2025, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be a lot happening. I look forward to meeting you in the District and to sharing 1^st District plans for fundraising events this year. Our goal is to beat the Democrats in 2026 by electing a Republican Governor, Secretary of State, and Attorney General. Every Michigan Senate seat and House seat is up for re-election, as well as our Congressional seat. We will be looking at an open U.S. Senate seat, so there will be a need for many volunteers. With Donald J Trump leading our nation, this is something we can do together………Let’s get it done!

Sincerely,

Daire Rendon

1^st Congressional District Republican Chair